It can take courage to have a voice, and for LTHS’ madrigal choir, there’s an abundance of it. On Feb. 22, 2025, the LTHS madrigal choir competed at the American Classic North Texas Madrigal Festival. Under the direction of choir director Michael Buntyn, the choir performed three pieces: “Bogoroditse Devo” by Sergei Rachmaninoff, “Earth Song” by Frank Ticheli, and “Said I That Amaryllis?” by Thomas Morley. The choir competed against over 30 different choirs across multiple states and won a trophy in their efforts.
Naturally, the first step of preparing for a competition is to select the pieces, and an activity like choir has centuries of choices. Buntyn explained how he chose the songs he did.
“‘Bogoroditse Devo’ is a favorite by judges and is just so good when done right,” Buntyn said. “I’ve never met a choir or judge that disliked ‘Earth Song,’ and ‘Said I That Amaryllis?’ was the actual madrigal that we chose for the contest just because it’s fun. We wanted to challenge ourselves with these pieces.”
Once every song is chosen, the choir has to work meticulously to perform each piece as close to perfection as possible. This has certainly happened as the choir has been working on “Earth Song” since August, “Bogoroditse Devo” since October, and “Said I That Amaryllis?” since January. Junior Devion Ralston described his process of practicing music.
“I prepare to do a piece usually by learning the basics of the music from what we do during class and then I set maybe 10 to 15 minutes after school to self practice, especially if the music is in another language,” Ralston said. “This little bit of extra work outside of class goes a long way even if it’s just a few minutes.”
After all of the preparation is finished, the choir performs in the competition. The American Classic Texas Madrigal Festival has been around since 1972, and its prestige attracts choirs from all over the state and even in neighboring states, so the victory definitely wasn’t easy. Buntyn provided his opinion on the outcome of the event.
“I think we did great,” Buntyn said. “The amount of practicing we did really paid off, and afterwards we got to work with one of my favorite directors, Ms. Kristina MacMullen, and it was overall just a great experience.”
Success alone isn’t the only highlight for the singers, however; choir is as much about community as it is about art. Ralston explained his favorite part of the event.
“I think the best part of the event was the rehearsal before we went on stage,” Ralston said. “We got to see a few other choirs walk in when we entered the church so we got to interact with them as well as talk among each other before performing.”
Choir not only offers opportunities to compete, but to grow. Junior Mehek Sharma explained how choir has helped her.
“Choir has benefitted me by making me more confident in my self-worth and have better pattern recognition skills,” Sharma said. “Choir has always been the one place where the community has been so supportive, motivating me to do my best.”
With another quarter left in the school year, choir still has a lot to do. The choir pre-UIL concert is on March 25, 2025 where all four choirs will perform music and sightreading. On April 1-3, the choir will compete in the UIL district competition, performing everything from their concert. Finally, the choir will host their annual pop show on May 2, 2025. This year’s theme is “Around the World” where the choirs will perform pop songs from and about places across the globe.
With a lot to look forward to for these young singers, Sharma gives insight on her favorite part of the organization.
“My favorite part of choir is everybody working through a common goal,” Sharma said. “Choir is made up of different people with different ideals and goals, but when we are in choir together, we all want to do the same thing: sound our best as one group.”
